systems

I cannot argue that we need to find alternative means of energy production to curb the consumption of fossil fuels.

However, the village of Kunduz Dam and its surroundings should not be the site of solar farms. Fertile lands in this part of the state should be protected and used for agricultural purposes.

It would be more appropriate to concentrate this energy source on farmland, rooftops, infertile and rocky soils, and sandy soils where the soil requires irrigation to grow crops. We see something truly terrible happening in the richest and most beautiful lands of our countryside. A number of local farmers are ignoring the negative impact of seemingly attractive leases being pushed by energy companies.

For some, it’s not too late to reconsider the extent to which this can affect property values, food production and the unsightly appearance of your neighbors.

The solar systems leader was selected for its Indian track record and proven bifacial design that maximizes energy gains in utility-scale solar power plants.

NEW DELHI and HYDERABAD, India , Dec. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Nextracker, a leading global provider of smart solar tracker and software solutions, today announced that it has signed a master supply agreement (MSA) with Amara Raja Power Systems Limited. Introducing award-winning solar trackers for NTPC Limited’s Nokh Solar Project – soon to be one of India’s largest solar parks. Amara Raja operates this 306 megawatt peak (MWp) project as a ground-mounted utility-scale power plant spread over 1,850 hectares (equivalent to approximately 3,500 contiguous football fields) in the state of Rajasthan.

Nextracker’s award-winning NX Horizon smart solar tracker.

The announcement follows an upward trend in solar tracker deployment with bifacial module technology in India due to falling module prices and increased tracker design efficiency. Nextracker’s optimized bifacial tracker design has been proven to increase energy efficiency, as confirmed by third-party test labs in this seminal bifacial and solar tracker white paper.

“In line with the government’s vision to bring more renewables into the energy mix, we are delighted to partner with Nextracker, a global leader in solar tracker technology, on the landmark Nokh solar project,” said Amara, Business Chief Projects Division, Dwarakanadha Reddy Raja Energy Systems. “We are proud to bring this cutting-edge technology to NTPC and Nextracker is the right local partner to help us achieve a low cost of energy (LCOE) over the life of the plant thanks to its dual-optimized design.”

“We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with Amara Raja and NTPC Limited, India’s largest power public sector utility,” said Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker. With one gigawatt of our high-performance solar tracking systems operating across 24 projects in India and employing close to 200 local employees to support design and engineering, local content and manufacturing, sales and after-sales services, Nextracker is committed to providing our customers with high-performance systems and making India the country’s energy provider. to support the goal of ensuring that 50 percent of its demand comes from renewable sources.”

The story continues

NTPC has increased its renewable energy investments in recent years and aims to achieve more than 60 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2032, accounting for 50% of its total generation capacity. The project is expected to be operational by October 2023, with the first deliveries arriving in the first quarter of 2023. Rajasthan has the highest installed renewable energy capacity (19.5 GW) among Indian states and recently achieved a target of 14 GW by 2022 in December 2021. .

About Nextracker
Nextracker is a leading provider of intelligent, integrated solar tracker and software solutions used in utility-scale and ground-mounted distributed solar projects worldwide. Our products enable solar panels in utility-scale power plants to track the sun’s movement across the sky and optimize plant performance. With more than 70 gigawatts of power worldwide, Nextracker leads the solar industry with solar tracker technologies that optimize and increase energy production and reduce costs for significant ROI. Please visit Nextracker for more information. Connect with us: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.

About Amara Raja Group
Amara Raja is one of India’s leading business conglomerates with interests spanning verticals from manufacturing of lead acid batteries (AMARON brand), power conversion products, sheet metal products, precision components, plastic molding, electronic manufacturing services, infrastructure development, food processing to industrial services. . Amara Raja Group of Companies with its flagship company Amara Raja Batteries Ltd is one of the largest manufacturers of automotive and industrial batteries in India. Amara Raja Group employs a workforce of over 16,000.

Nextracker logo (c) 2021 (PRNewsfoto/NEXTracker)

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SOURCE Nextracker

As a small business owner who has been designing and building solar power and storage systems throughout the Roaring Fork Valley and Western Slope for over 30 years, I felt compelled to respond to D. Dowd Muska’s Commentary on Thursday, December 15th.

Mr. Muska claims that “solar is a bust,” especially in the Southwest. He claims solar makes up a very small fraction of utility-scale power, but makes no mention of “distributed” generation… ie, smaller than many “distributed” utility-scale systems in the Southwest and the United States.. His sources are also solar. admitting that the intensity is naturally low and the material incentives are high … a lose-lose proposition, in his view.

This is all quite confusing.

First, the sun is far from the bust. Just ask Amazon, Google, Walmart, and the US military, the largest buyer of solar technology in the US. As for poor light intensity, he’s probably referring to the smog factor in Phoenix, Salt Lake, or metro Los Angeles. And where does this fog come from? As for incentives, don’t get me started on the oil and gas subsidies that have generated billions in profits for the industry for decades.

Mr. Muska goes on to point out that “solar power is inefficient, unreliable and expensive when all costs are considered.”

I would argue that when all the costs of exploration, mining, extraction, transportation, processing, distribution, incineration, refining, and addressing the long-term health problems associated with fossil fuels are considered… the cost is greater.

I think we can all agree that there is no silver bullet, but Colorado’s booming solar technology, along with its economies of scale, has brought solar to the fore. The result is and will continue to be clean, affordable, renewable energy generation from the skies above. One of our favorite observations is: Have you ever seen solar energy dissipate?

Scott Ely

Carbondale

WASHINGTON — Within three years, large-scale battery projects are expected to surge across the Texas and California power grids as developers seek to store the electricity generated by the state’s expanding wind and solar farms.

The Energy Department estimates that 21 gigawatts of storage capacity will be connected to the US power grid by 2026, more than 2½ times the amount currently in operation. About 8 gigawatts are expected in Texas.

The boom in battery development comes as weather-dependent wind and solar power become an increasingly large part of the U.S. power grid, requiring an alternative energy source when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

As renewable energy has grown over the past decade, natural gas-fired turbines have taken on much of that load. But as lithium-ion battery prices have fallen in recent years — while natural gas prices have risen — energy utilities are increasingly looking to larger batteries to fill the gaps.

“The technology you’re seeing here is starting to hit its tipping point,” said Ryan Katofsy, managing director of trade group Advanced Energy Economy. “Costs go down, performance improves. There is more information about qualities (batteries).”

The boom coincides with growing concerns about the reliability of the US power grid amid changing weather patterns linked to climate change. Texas suffered days of deadly blackouts last year after a winter storm caused power plants and natural gas wells to freeze. Michael Webber, an energy professor at the University of Texas, said the batteries could theoretically help provide power when generators fail.

But what’s driving investors’ interest is a state energy market in the Panhandle and West Texas where wind power often exceeds the capacity of transmission lines serving the state’s population centers, he said. If a power company can store electricity during off-peak hours and deploy it during times of peak demand, there is a profit to be made.

“You get these opportunities for big changes from low to high,” Webber said. “Frankly, we’re going to build batteries everywhere.”

Texas’ burgeoning battery market is dominated by two startups, according to federal records. Houston-based Broad Reach Power has 14 projects with a total of 2.2 gigawatts of capacity coming online by 2024, and Austin-based solar developer SolarPro has nine projects with a total of 4.1 gigawatts of capacity coming online by 2025.

Broad Reach declined to comment and SolarPro did not respond to a request for comment.

More battery projects could come with 79 gigawatts of pending projects at the Texas Electric Reliability Board, the state’s grid operator. Many of these projects have yet to secure funding or other milestones, but they represent one-third of all generation currently in development on the ERCOT network.

To help them, Congress included a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act passed this year that would allow battery projects to claim the same investment tax credit as solar manufacturers.

“You had some people have expectations (of the tax credit), so they were getting projects in line so they would be ready when the policy happened,” Katofsky said. “It’s a bit of a gamble, but that’s all.”

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AUSTIN (KXAN) – Nearly a year after being approved by the Texas State Public Utilities Commission, Tesla has launched Tesla Electric, a solar energy retail program.

The company made the announcement Thursday on Twitter, calling it “a power plan that offers affordable clean energy for homes with Powerwall, starting in Texas.”

This is the first Tesla program of its kind in the world and is part of a pilot program with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) approved earlier this year.

PUCT approved Tesla Energy Ventures, LLC as a provider last year before launching this pilot.

Tesla Can Now Sell Electricity to Texans: How It Could Work

“The goal is to develop more ways for ERCOT customers to manage their electricity use, to their benefit and to the benefit of the Texas grid,” said PUCT spokesman Rich Parsons.

How would customers do this? Through virtual power plant (VPP).

“Instead of a big new gas plant, you’d have a lot of different distributed energy resources, which are small [houses]”,” explained David Tuttle, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. “Each one would be small, but when combined together, it generates a meaningful amount of electricity. You can export it as a virtual power plant.”

So the idea is that homeowners, with their strength of numbers, can help reduce the stress on the ERCOT grid by selling and sending back the extra solar energy.

ERCOT said there are currently no VPPs sold in the wholesale market in Texas.

A new pilot program with PUCT allows Tesla and other companies to try to do just that.

It is called the Total Distributed Energy Resource (ADER) Pilot Project.

“This pilot task force, I’m proud to report, and together with ERCOT, is the first to address this in Texas,” Tesla spokeswoman Arushi Sharma Frank said during a Sept. 12 PUCT workshop.

He was part of the task force behind the launch of this pilot.

“The concept is that specific, controllable devices in the home (especially Powerwalls for Tesla) can be connected between customers in a geographic area and participate directly in the wholesale market, including shipping and providing ancillary equipment through the ERCOT marketplace. services,” an ERCOT spokesperson wrote in an email to KXAN.

Tesla Electric requires a Tesla Powerwall, a rechargeable lithium battery that goes inside the house and stores solar energy.

From there, according to Tesla’s website, Tesla’s algorithms monitor electricity prices in the customer’s area and direct their Powerwall to sell extra energy to the grid when prices are high. This is done through his program.

Tesla is now hiring for a dedicated role in its new electric retail business

Kind of like an electricity exchange, Tuttle said.

The company says this is different from other solar buyback plans, which buy additional solar power “when it’s plentiful and cheap.”

All of this will help Tesla Electric customers save on their bills.

Powerwall customers can sell power “when there is more demand and more value,” the website notes. “Compared to other real-time solar feed-back plans, Tesla Electric can help its customers unlock more value from energy exports than real-time solar feed-back plans.”

“This initiative is about Tesla’s customers and it’s about the retail energy offering that Tesla can bring to this market,” Sharma Frank said during public comments at an ERCOT board meeting in July.

Who can and cannot access Tesla Electric

“I think it’s good to have another retailer because it increases the number of competitors in competitive areas,” Tuttle said.

This is their key; You must live in a “competitive area” to be able to buy solar from a private retailer like Tesla.

Because of this, even though Austin has many Powerwall homeowners, they can’t use Tesla Electric; their provider is a municipality or cooperative, such as Austin Energy.

Tesla is behind the development of East Austin’s newest solar community

Your provider will have to partner with Tesla, but you won’t be able to participate in Tesla Electric as an individual homeowner.

Municipalities and cooperatives make up about 25% of the state, ERCOT said. The rest is fair game for solar electric retailers like Tesla.

ERCOT told KXAN that Tesla and other companies are currently trying to pick up customers. The VPP pilot program itself will begin next year.

The spokesman said there would be limits on the amount of energy bought and sold so agencies can analyze the program’s costs and benefits and address issues before expanding.